The Scout Guide, an introduction to troop leading for inexperienced nobles

Some specific terms are further explained below marked by a * and number.
The Linked words will lead you to other pages describing and/or further explaining the term.

Writing Lettters and Hierachy

If you have found your way to Fallangard you're obligated to introduce your self to the realm, in return people will welcome you to the local nobility. You can use scribes*1 to write and receive messages. It is also important that you understand how to address peers and vassals, Sir would be the minimum title of any noble, Lord for any local Lord or government member. Your Grace, Margrave or Duke to be used for a Margrave or Duke and my King, obviously for the King. Of course respect is important when speaking to someone with more fancy titles then you. Eventually you will start to understand that letters are the most powerful tools for a noble in this world. Writing the right letter to the right person makes the world go round, and is the most important factor in winning or losing a war.

Your Estate and Travel

Now you know how to sent messages, receive them and address the right people in the right way, you can start looking for a home. Or in other words, an estate.

An estate is a manor and a certain area of land that will fall under you. You don’t own that land but are granted it by the Lord of the region the land belongs to, that region is granted by the Duke of the regions duchy. A duchy is again granted by the King upon the Duke. The land’s commoners will pay taxes, which go directly to you. Lords will usually also tax a small part of your income, so the total gold you will get from your estate will also depend on how your lord has set his tax share. To find an estate one can simply look for it in the region he or she is currently in*2.

If there is no estate available, simply send a message realm wide or to all lords of the realm with a request for an estate. If a lord replies to your request, look for his region on the map and start travelling there. If you can't find it on the map or have problems finding the shortest route, you can always ask your advisors*3 the find you a route.

In return for the land you are granted, you are suspected to serve your lord. Your suspected to lead a unit and lead these men to battle. He will assign you to an army lead by a marshal, whose orders and advise your obligated to follow.

Planning your travel

Travelling to a specific region is a quite easy, however if you are either dodging enemy troops or joining the rest of the army in battle, it might get a little more tricky. Most of the times your marshal will help you coordinate these situations where timing and planning are essential.

He might ask you to move to a certain region taking a specific amount of time (so you join the rest of the army for example). He could ask you to travel from region x to region y for half day travel or a full day (one or two turn moves). You will arrive somewhere in half a day or a full day depending on the amount of time you have left (in your time pool). Your advisor's(travel tab in navigation bar will show this) will tell you how much time it will take to travel from x to y. Travel times will fluctuate depending various factors, like the conditions of the road or the current season.

There also unforeseen conditions that might delay or shorten your travel by approximately one or two hours, like taking a wrong road or a blocked one. Always make sure when you plan your travel to use margins of 2 hours at least. If you have scouts, which we will talk about more under the scouting chapter, your less likely to get unforeseen delayed on the road. To make sure you do not arrive somewhere the next half day(turn) while already on your way, you can use the delay arrival option, which can be used once during your travel from one to another region. It will keep you delayed enough to arrive half a day later. If you still wish to delay your arrival further, you can also set up camp for a certain amount of time. You can also turn around, but please make up your mind and do not turn around to often in a single travel, your staff and or unit will not like it at all and eventually refuse to turn around any further.

Your Unit

When a noble has just started his career, he will always have a small, personal guard. These men are mostly well under equipped and you are usually suspected to replace them with a new unit*4, which you can recruit only in the capital of your realm.

Units can only be recruited with gold, so make sure you first change your bonds into gold at the bank which can be found in your capital and the cities of your realm. You're always free to decide what kind of unit to recruit, anyone has there own personal preferences.

Units are equipped with shields and or armour along with a or multiple weapons. The higher the equipment rates of a unit, the deadlier or the tougher (depending on rate of armour or weapons) it becomes. Training shows, as you may have already presumed, how well the unit can fight. Cohesion shows how well your unit can work together. All these numbers add up and will decide how efficient your unit will perform, this is shown in Combat strength, a universal indicator of how efficient units preform.

Obviously your men will have to receive pay, and the better they are equipped and/or the better they are trained, the more they will cost to recruit and to upkeep. It is advisable to pay your men every week or they will desert and/or even rob you of whatever you have to pay for their needs. (you can pay your men under orders) Your military advisor(under information tab) can help you estimate the weekly cost of your unit so you can be sure that your tax share from your estate is high enough to pay for your unit. Either way, if your ever short on gold and your family isn't sending you any more extra gold, contact your lord as quickly as possible.

Your unit tasks and settings

You can order your unit to do various tasks, but unless it is training, resting, entertainment or any other actions that will have no immediate influence on your environment you're advised to ask permission first, or wait until you are asked or ordered to do so.

There also aggressive options like various kinds of looting, taking over regions or destroying fortifications or recruitment centres(where the enemy gets there men from). These options can have a very considerable effect on the region you're performing these actions, only do so when ordered.

If you're asked to do certain tasks, they might be directly available to you in most situations yet sometimes not without applying some changes to your unit. You can for example, after paying your men, or just recruiting a new unit, change your units designation. (which can be found under orders, in the navigation bar to the left and then select unit settings) If you're asked to do Police work for example, you will have to change your units into a police force first. Where you can set your men to function as police force, you can also set your units behaviour(engaging battle or not and how to behave on the field of battle itself).

Apart from your units designation and behaviour, you can also select where to deploy your men and in what formation. The battlefield is divided in several segments, the first to be called front and the last rear guard. The enemy has its side of the battlefield divided in the same kind of segments with one neutral line in-between the two parts of the field. Units behaving defensive will as much as they can, stay in there position, Aggressive settings will cause the unit to move forward. Most units move one line per battle round with the exception of Cavalry, who charge two lines a round. The battle lasts as many rounds as needed till one of the sides is defeated.

You can also set a withdraw rate for your unit. If the set percentage of damage is being done to your unit in a single round, they will automatically retreat. You will be asked to adjust this withdraw rate according to different situations.

Your Marshall will most likely ask you to adopt certain formations, position and behaviour for your unit, make sure you have the right settings or your unit will not fight alongside your brothers and sisters, thus risking to get slaughtered. You can find it under standing orders, or by asking your Marshal or fellow members of your army.

The laws of Fallangard

As a noble with a unit you might feel pretty powerful in the beginning, but unless you wish to be fined or even jailed by the Judge, you better respect the laws of Fallangard.

The laws of fallangard are quite simple:

Assassins will be caught, banned, and if caught again executed.
Respect the chain of command. While we are at war, follow the orders of the General, Marshals, and our King.
Deliberate slander of fellow nobles will not be tolerated.
Please don't leave our lands unless ordered or permission is granted by request.
Do not loot unless ordered.
Do not hang rebels unless specifically ordered, conduct normal police work only.

Make sure you understand them. If you don’t ask for help.

Scouting

As an inexperienced noble you will not be able to recruit as much men as others. Your reputation as an honourable noble will increase by performing honourable actions, primarily, leading your men to battle. Of which battles against other troop leaders(from an enemy foreign nation/realm) are seen as the most honourable, which will quickly gain you enough reputation.

As long as your maximum unit cannot exceed 50 men, you might receive a lower tax share from your estate and are asked to go on scout missions. When you pass the scouts exam you will start serving the army by staying ahead of the main army by one or two regions, scouting the enemy forces movement. With this task you will put to practice what you have just learned and actively pursue the task of keeping an eye on the enemy. You will also learn how to make your own decisions within the Marshals guidelines and take responsibility for your units safety. You will mostly have to avoid battle by escaping before the enemy arrives and unless you are trapped, try to evade combat by setting your men to evasive.

You can scout by sending scouts to certain regions. Which can be bought in town lands and rural region with a scouts guild, look under your General bulletin(under information tab) or ask your army which regions have a scout guild.

Your Paraphernalia

Scouts fall under Paraphernalia*5, staff to support your unit. Among Paraphernalia, there are healers, who can take care of 25 wounded each per turn significantly increasing the chance of healing your wounded men.

Then there are banners who can help infantry or cavalry units especially to remain organized, they will help your unit together in the heat of battle, one banner per 25 men is advisable. Banners also show the colours of your Lord, duchy and realm.

Siege engines help your men mount walls, there heavy and significantly slow your unit down, only buy them if specifically ordered.

Carts can help carry wounded men(wounded men also slow you down), and can sometimes be helpful, for example if your just defeated in battle and need to get away as quickly as possible.

Caravans can carry food and are not advisable to use as standard equipment.

Rogues, Monsters and Undead

Apart from specific orders you're also suspected to keep our regions constantly safe from Rogue attacks. Rogue forces are a category of bandits, or what the locals call monstrosities and the living dead who occasionally attack our population, they come in many forms and strengths.

Without defeating these rogues, our regions can be destroyed by them. Whenever you get a report of a rogue force showing up or being present, travel there straight away and try to arrive in half a turn. Make sure you do this before anything else, so you have enough time to arrive there as quickly as possible (the next turn) and report to the realm that you're moving out with how much men. This way others know if its still helpful to join the fight.

Rogues always start on there middle line of there side of the field, which makes it easier for us to anticipate on there behaviour and thus we always use the same settings perfected per type of rogue. The Monsters differ from the Undead quite severely. Where Monsters are beasts, they behave like beasts and can be frightened, quite alike our soldiers. Overwhelm them or fire a plenty arrows at them and they run even before engaging your men. This is vital as the moment these beasts come into direct combat with our infantry, they can do heavy damage.

Monsters:

Infantry: Front/Box/Defensive/Dug in if possible|50% Retreat
Archers: Deploy to maximize range(middle for range 4, front for range 3)/Line/Defensive|Minimum retreat
Cavalry: Rear/Box/Defensive|Minimum retreat

Undead on the other hand have no fear and simply fight until there completely destroyed. There in more numbers but do much less damage. Cavalry tends to be effective against them, trampling right over there skinny skeletal bodies. Undead are dangerous in numbers, large armies can destroy complete continents as has happened on the strange continent of Beluaterra.

Undead:

Infantry: Middle/Box/Aggressive|Max retreat
Archers: Deploy to maximize range(middle for range 4, front for range 3)/Line/Defensive|Minimum retreat
Cavalry: Rear/Wedge/Aggressive|Minimum retreat

(*1) An in game roleplay name for the message system, simply click on messages, from there you can select someone or a group of people to send your message to. new messages will always show the moment you click on one of your characters in the family page)

(*2) when playing your character on the bottom screen you can see your characters name on the left, your unit name on the right and the name of the region you're at in the middle. Click on that region name and you will see the information page of that region, there you will find all the information you need. There is a tab for estates where you can see if there any open estates at the moment. The option of taking an available estate, can be found under politics on the left side on the navigation bar. When you click on politics you see an option ‘your estate’, click on it and you can see the options you have, pick one by clicking on take estate next to it.

(*3) In the navigation bar you will find a tab ‘Travel’, when you click on it you will see a small map showing the region you're in and the direct vicinity. You can zoom in or out on this map, yet it is advisable to use the dynamic map instead, under information. The travel tab also shows the regions you can directly travel to. Travel goes by turn and one by one, you can select a next destination after selecting your initial one. Under your travel options we have the route finder, select your destination and he will show you which regions to travel to, step by step.

(*4) If you do not know the capital of your realm, click on information in the navigation bar on your left and look for realm and regions, that page will show you the capital of your realm somewhere on the top. Once you are there, you will find the option to recruit a unit under orders, it also shows how much men are available from each recruitment centre and how much you can max recruit with your characters honour and gold. You can combine different men from different centres, but only as long as it is the same unit type (Archers, Cavalry, Infantry, Mixed infantry or Special forces) You can abandon your unit or set it up as Militia to recruit a new unit.

(*5) Paraphernalia can be found under orders and different paraphernalia are available in different regions, an overview can usually be found in the general's bulletin. Paraphernalia might cost gold and or upkeep every week and can be paid under pay your men in the orders tab.